Former Italian policeman hijacks second plane, surrenders

A man who hijacked a French jet in 1999 struck again, threatening to blow up a flight over Switzerland with 57 passengers aboard, police said.

He surrendered after the plane landed in southern France yesterday and no one was hurt.

The man, identified by French police as Stefano Savorani, a former Italian policeman with a history of mental illness, claimed to be a member of the al-Qaeda terrorist network and brandished a TV remote control he said was connected to a bomb, authorities said.

The Alitalia flight landed safely after Savorani, 29, demanded it be diverted to Lyon, France's second-largest city, and that he be allowed to speak to journalists.

Authorities said the hijacker released the passengers in two waves from the MD-80 jet, which had been flying from Bologna, Italy, to Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris. Savorani surrendered to a French SWAT team and no explosives were found on board.");document.write("

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In 1999, Savorani hijacked an Air France jetliner flying from Marseille to Paris with 76 passengers and forced it to detour to a different Paris airport, where he held a dozen people hostage for three hours.

"Oh God, he's done it again," the Italian news agency ANSA quoted his mother, Orella Savorani, as saying. "I've been anxious for hours because he didn't come home at lunchtime."

French police said Savorani was discharged from the Italian police in the late 1990s because of mental instability, and ANSA quoted his mother as saying he was in treatment for schizophrenia.

She said he borrowed $US500 ($A900) from her in the morning, saying he needed it to pay university fees.

French police said Savorani also commandeered an Italian train in 1998 with a toy gun, but no charges were pressed against him because of his mental illness.

Authorities said they did not immediately know if he spent time in prison after the 1999 hijacking.

Authorities said the plane was flying over Switzerland when the suspect stood up, waved the remote control and threatened to blow up the plane. According to police, the man then declared: "I belong to an al-Qaeda network, I want to make a declaration to the press."

Moments after the plane landed, women and children scrambled from the plane, followed by a second wave of passengers, said the head of the airport police, Captain Francis Ohling. Eventually, the crew emerged with a man wearing blue jeans and a pullover in their midst.

"The fellow looked determined ... I took out my gun, I cocked it, I told him to lie down and we jumped on him," Ohling told The Associated Press.

One passenger, Stefania Palminteri, told Italy's RAI state TV that passengers realised something was wrong when the plane began descending right after crossing the Alps.

"The captain told us to remain seated and stay calm," she told RAI by telephone. After landing "suddenly they made the women and children get off and they told us there was a crazy man aboard."

Yesterday's hijacking was similar to Savorani's last one. In the 1999 case, police said he also threatened to blow up the plane, claiming to be a member of a militant group. He eventually released his hostages and surrendered.

In the latest incident, there were 57 passengers and seven crew members on board, Alitalia said.

Enzo Bianco, head of the Italian parliamentary committee on secret services, said he was grateful the suspect had been disarmed and captured, the Italian news agency Ap.Biscom reported.

"This makes us breathe a sigh of relief," he said.

The diversion of the plane comes as France, like other Western nations, is at a heightened state of alert for possible terrorist actions.

French police have arrested at least 18 people in recent days suspected of being involved with terrorist activity in a series of raids in and around Paris.

Those captured include several suspected of links with Richard Reid, a British citizen who pleaded guilty in federal court on October 4 in Boston to attempting to blow up a Paris-Miami flight last year with explosives hidden in his sneakers.

Earlier yesterday, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy told the lower house of Parliament that authorities were exercising "extreme vigilance" against a possible attack.

Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said in an interview published this week that France was a leading target of terrorist groups.